Meet Doug Paradis, a member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group and Dallas Makerspace. In MAKE Volume 29, Doug wrote about making the Tiny Wanderer, a beginner-level robot that autonomously navigates with a $2 microcontroller. (A Maker Shed kit is also available.) Doug is interested in microcontrollers, robots, crafts, and fishing.

What’s your background?

I live in Richardson, TX, a suburb of Dallas, with my wife Susan. I am an Electrical Engineer by profession. I backpack, fly fish, build robots, play with microprocessors, do some leather work, and build clocks. There are interesting projects to be had in all of these activities.

Why do you like making things?

Making things is fun. I constantly find myself asking “How could this be done differently?” when engaged in almost any activity. I take great pleasure in learning a new technique or skill. With each skill I learn, more possibilities open up.

Tell us about your Tiny Wanderer project, which you wrote about in MAKE

The Tiny Wanderer was built as a demonstration tool for a series of lectures held at the Dallas Personal Robotics Group (DPRG) in early 2011. It turned out to be a great training aid and beginner project. The lecture series covered PCB fabrication using the toner transfer method, using KiCAD, programming the ATTiny, using Inkscape, and State Machines. Videos of all the presentations are available on DPRG’s YouTube channel.

What are your upcoming projects?

I’m currently building an autonomous navigating robot for an inside environment. The next step will be a robot suitable for outdoor roaming. My hope is to be able to allow it to go off into the woods and have it return to its starting point. I am also very interested in designing my version of a homemade CNC router. I have to fight to stay focused, because there are so many interesting projects to build. I attempt to follow a philosophy of having a main project that I drive to completion, while using some real simple projects to help me recharge my ideas on the main project.

Can you tell us about one of your favorite tools?

As a member of Dallas Makerspace and Dallas Personal Robotics Group, I have access to a Full Spectrum laser cutter. This tool, along with Inkscape, has allowed me to quickly explore ideas and design choices with incredible speed and accuracy.

Here are more Tiny Wanderer Videos:
Video of Tiny Wanderer (MAKE kit) in avoidance-sensor configuration

Tiny Wanderer (MAKE kit) in line-following configuration

Video of Tiny Wanderer (not MAKE kit) doing line following

Video of Tiny Wanderer on table (not MAKE kit)

From the pages of MAKE Volume 29:

We have the technology (to quote The Six Million Dollar Man), but commercial tools for exploring, assisting, and augmenting our bodies really can approach a price tag of $6 million. Medical and assistive tech manufacturers must pay not just for R&D, but for expensive clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and liability — and doesn’t help with low pricing that these devices are typically paid for through insurance, rather than purchased directly. But many gadgets that restore people’s abilities or enable new “superpowers” are surprisingly easy to make, and for tiny fractions of the costs of off-the-shelf equivalents. MAKE Volume 29, the “DIY Superhuman” issue, explains how.

BUY OR SUBSCRIBE!

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Makers in this post:

Doug Paradis – Dallas

This is a bit of a follow to some ongoing posts about 3D printing… Pirate file-sharing goes 3D @ New Scientist:

Tony Rodriguez, who works for Oregon-based digital watermarking firm Digimarc says that valid 3D files could be marked by subtly altering the 3D design without changing the printed object. This would let a 3D printer distinguish between a manufacturer’s file, which contains the alteration, and one made by scanning an object, which does not.

Perhaps such techniques will not be relevant. Michael Weinberg, staff attorney for Washington-based intellectual property (IP) advocacy groupPublic Knowledge, says that while text, music and video are automatically copyrighted, “the vast majority of physical objects aren’t protected by any sort of IP right”. Copying inventions protected by patents is illegal, as is replicating a trademarked logo, but measuring a desk and building a replica is not.

Panicking companies may push for stronger IP laws if 3D printing becomes more widespread, but Weinberg says this would be a mistake. He suggests companies learn from the media industry’s mistakes and embrace the new opportunities it affords, perhaps by encouraging the legal downloading of object files. “If everyone has access to a 3D printer I can go online, pick an object that I want, customise it and print it out,” he says. “That’s an incredible opportunity for companies.”
They will not want to miss the boat again.

Read more…

Begun the Clone War has.

You probably all remember Printrbot, the quick-build, low-cost 3D printer design from Brook Drumm that took Kickstarter by storm, last year. Brook’s stated funding goal for the project was $25,000, and it ended up netting more than $830,000.

Since that time, unsurprisingly, Brook has been a very busy man. Saturday we got the interesting news that he has officially published the first set of printable Printrbot parts on Thingiverse. There are eight of them. So far, the only instructions about how to put them together, however, seem to be in this Flickr set. You can follow Printrbot’s progress at Brook’s official blog.

More:

• DIY Manufacturing Spotlighted at Kickstarter
• Best of Make: Our Year in Crowdfunding
• Best of Maker Business 2011
• Predictions for 2012 – Add Yours!
• Prototype Quick-Build, Low-Cost 3D Printer

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

Here is a simple way to make the small stellated dodecahedron on a large scale. Jim Watters suggests weaving together thirty dowels, so you can make it fairly large if you want.

The connectors are made from short lengths of rubber tubing that have been sewn together at the tip. This makes it easy to assemble, disassemble, transport, store, and reassemble

What other star polyhedra can you make with this technique?

More:
See all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns

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Makers in this post:

Jim Watters –

A guitar will often die a slow death by peeling its own wood bottom from the glue that binds it to the rest of the body. This might very well relegate the instrument to firewood, but Asaf Tz’rtkof saw potential in the exposed brace work.

The result is a spice rack carved out from the body of the guitar. This is an excellent example of reuse, and adds an element of pizzazz to any kitchen decor.

[via Recyclart]

More:

• Roasting Pan Guitar Resonator
• Guitar Amp Bulletin Board
• How-To: Vinyl Record Guitar Holder

Out pals at adafruit have just released Circuit Playground, an app for iPhone and iPad that combines a bunch of handy electronics references and calculators in one attractive interface. It’s $2.99 from the AppStore. An Android version is reportedly in the works, but I understand the adafruit folks are not in too much of a hurry to horn in on the good work that Demetrio Iero is already doing with ElectroDroid.

Looking for a great, standalone LED project? Check out the Blue Blinky Grid from the Maker Shed! This kit can be soldered together easily in under an hour and uses 56 bright blue LEDs to display text and animations. The best part about this kit is that it doesn’t require any coding or a programmer; to change the display you simply go to this website, input your desired text or designs, hold the kit against your monitor or smartphone display, and hit the “go” button to upload a new sequence. It’s that easy! It’s perfect for concerts, conventions, or anywhere a little “flash” is desired. Also available in a POV version for creating messages that seem to float in mid-air! (Note: Prototype version shown. Current version looks slightly different and is powered by 2 AA batteries.)

Features

• Program by holding the Blinky Grid up to your monitor!
• 56 Blue LEDs
• Pre-programmed microcontroller

Grant Gibson of Glasgow, the UK, converted a $5 alarm clock into a gmail notifier.

Every time I get a new email the clock moves from side to side and does the classic Space Invaders sound, then lights one of the LEDs to give me an idea of how many unread messages there are. There’s loads more that could be done with it, but I was happy just turning it into something more useful without destroying it in the process.

Grant has schematics and code on his website.

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Makers in this post:

Grant Gibson – Glasgow, UK

…and after several rounds of zinc whiskers, take to the stage for a rousing if slightly off-key rendition of The Animals’ 1964 version of The House of The Rising Sun. From Vimeo user PURETUNE, who writes:

For this video i recorded each instrument separately with a decent stereo mic and i also used a mixer to adjust the audio levels. i would like to point out that absolutely no sampling or audio effects were used.

instruments

a. HP Scanjet 3P, Adaptec SCSI card and a computer powered by Ubuntu v9.10 OS as the Vocals. (hey, the scanner is old)
b. Atari 800XL with an EiCO Oscilloscope as the Organ
c. Texas instrument Ti-99/4A with a Tektronix Oscilloscope as the Guitar
d. Hard-drive powered by a PiC16F84A microcontroller as the bass drum and cymbal

…

i would like to give a shoutout to James Houston who (i think) was the first person to use multiple legacy computer equipment in conjunction to make a song. Be sure to take the time to view his YouTube video “Big ideas: Don’t get any – Radiohead cover by James Houston”.

[Thanks, Dale!]

Redditor drewsaysgoveg made this cool DIY key rack from spare keys. He secured the keys in a vice and carefully curled them by tapping them with a hammer, only breaking two in the process.

More:

• A True Geek’s Keychain Rack
• Hip keyrack uses magnets to clasp keys
• LEGO Key rack